


The Not-Quite Mariner

by vanishedSchism



Category: Campaign 2 (Critical Role) - Fandom, Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: And a mollywawk is an albatross so you know i had to write basically an entire fic about that, Campaign 02 (Critical Role), Drowning, Introspection, Molly is trans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:44:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishedSchism/pseuds/vanishedSchism
Summary: What's in a name?(Or how Molly is born)





	The Not-Quite Mariner

_An orphan's curse would drag to hell_  
_A spirit from on high;_  
_But oh! more horrible than that_  
_Is the curse in a dead man's eye!_  
_Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse_  
_And yet I could not die._

_-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge_

 

A tiefling ran across the deck of the ship, woefully unprepared for the severity of the storm. The journey was supposed to be dangerous, yes, but it was supposed to be dangerous in a way that would make people worry, that would make mothers and fathers clutch their child tight when he disembarked, still swaying like the deck that he'd been closer to than anyone at home. 

_I just needed a break,_ the tiefling thought as he struggled to hold onto the rope in his hands. The sails snapped to and fro and the rain drove like daggers into his skin. 

The captain yelled something from the wheel but the wind whipped the words away. He was left alone with his thoughts and the storm. 

They'd always said he'd bring ruin to the family. It was foolish to try to tame the Abyss. _The father was bad enough but now your daughter has eyes as red as her lips should be! She'll bring nothing but bad luck to folk like us._

His mother loved him, he had to give her that. She sewed him a coat with a hood large enough shield his horns and helped him file his claws so they would fit in simple gloves. She told him she loved him, that one day someone would come along who saw past the devil to the beautiful woman underneath. He didn't know how to tell her that there wasn't one. 

He wished he'd said goodbye. 

A man (a nice man, the elf who offered him the voyage in return for help in the kitchen) screamed as he went overboard. 

He grit his teeth dropped his weight to steady the sail against the wind determined to fight now as he hadn't in his hometown. He lost the battle. He was thrown into the air and failed to find purchase on the slick deck when he came back down. The wind screamed past his ears and slammed him into the side of the boat. 

Some of the screaming may have been directed at him. 

The deck pitched and heaved as the water got rougher. He scrambled to his knees as the rope slithered away from him. He lunged, fingers outstretched, the very tips of his claw catching in the fiber as a wave crested over the ship and slammed him into the deck. The wind ripped away whatever sound came out of his mouth. 

He hit the deck hard and almost blacked out there. 

Instead, the water rushed over him and the deck pitched again and he felt the water lift him into its cold embrace. He gasped and felt the freezing burn in his lungs. He threw his body forward and managed a gasp of air before he went back under again. A plant of wood hit him in the back and he almost lost it. 

He held his breath until his lungs burned. 

_I don't want to die,_ he thought. 

And then, _It's fitting that I would disappoint even myself in my final moments._

\--

When he woke up he immediately wished he hadn't. Everything hurt, his lungs, his legs, his horns, he cracked his eyes open and they immediately stung. And then he began to cough, salty scratchy burning his throat and splattering on the sand. 

"You won't want to eat after all that," someone said, he thought it might be coming from above, but it could have been in his head, "but some soup would do you good." 

_No,_ he thought. _It can't be in my head, the voice is much too deep._

He looked up and saw the dripping stranger above him. A half orc, with a jovial smile despite the soaked clothes that clung to his skin and left little to the imagination. "It's on me," the man said, holding a hand out. "I almost forgot my manners!" he said as the tiefling reached a tentative hand out, conscious of how long his claws had gotten since he left home. "My name is Pom," the man said.

The not-quite-sailor, the man who had lost everything, looked at his hand in Pom's, the lavender against the olive green. The colors smeared together and when Pom pulled him to his feet the sand roiled under him. 

Pom put a hand at his back to steady him. When his vision stopped swimming he looked up and Pom was still there. 

"Mollymauk," he said, his salt soaked voice scratching on the unfamiliar sound, "my name is Mollymauk." 

Pom smiled, a dazzling smile with quite a bit of fang, and led him toward his new life.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so in love with the entire new cast?? pls scream about them with me at [ my tumblr](http://vanishedschism.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
